Missing in Action: The
Lost Games of the PC, Part 3 on IGN tries to ascertain the true status of
several game projects that haven't been heard from in a while, including Loose
Cannon (TBD), Pantheon (RIP), Sovereign (RIP), and Imperium Galactica III /
Galaxy Andromeda / Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (still breathing). Along the way,
they talk with Valve's Doug Lombardi, who fills us in on the status of
TeamFortress 2, the planned reworking of the popular modification (to correct a
point in the article, the original T.F. was for Quake) that you may have heard
discussed by your grandparents:

Here's the word from Valve's Doug
Lombardi: "Some time after we announced Team Fortress 2, which was then being
created on the HL1 tech, the decision was made to move the project to the Source
Engine, the same engine used for HL2. The project is still in development here
at Valve and we will be announcing more info after HL2 ships."

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Well, they probably should never have even mentioned that they were continuing work on the game at this point. Of course, they haven't exactly even said that, either, we're sort of inferring it by the lack of a flat-out refusal to call it a "dead" project.

What I think is sort of funny about this is just how close it was made out to being done and ready for shipping. I have my own long un-fulfilled pre-order, and the game was even featured on the cover of one of the PCgamer magazine issues! That the game had ever been developed on the Q3 engine has to be seen as not likely at all, since TF2, Q3, and UT were all supposed to be competitors with the same release date. We all know how that race turned out...

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it disturbing that among all the noncommital tidbits dropped on the game over the past few years, not a one of them has been attributed to Robin Walker? Gabe Newell might be the head honcho at Valve, but Walker and his team were the folks who were responsible for TF1, and who had been "acquired" by Valve for work on TF2. A very vocal person in the TF2 community right up until the sudden media blackout, the fact that he hasn't been linked to any TF2 news in about three years makes me wonder if he's even still part of the project.